346 REUNION IN
AMARILLO
THE
FAIR-HAIRED BOYS OF WORLD-WAR II MEET AGAIN
Almost 50 years have passed since the
346 ORDNANCE DEPOT COMPANY as a unit, was in the State of Texas. Now, this October 1 to 4, 1992, the 346 will
hold its 7th reunion in Amarillo, TX at Fifth Season Inn East and
will be hosted by two fine 346ers, Daniel B. Worley of Amarillo and Bobby L.
McAninch of Plainview.
The 346 was organized in 1942 at Camp
Gruber, OK. After basic, operative and
combat training there the unit went to Louisiana and eastern Texas for
maneuvers. During these operations
General George Patton was impressed by the capabilities of the 346.
In the spring of 1943 the fair-haired
boys convoyed back to Gruber. Here
there was more training in classes and in the field in intense heat. There were many trips to other camps and to
Texas moving materiel and vehicles. On
one excursion to Fort Bliss in El Paso the convoy stopped at an airbase in San
Angelo where they were afforded the excitement of riding the blue in a training
seat of a squadron that had just won its wings. Returning back to Gruber it was so hot that the Company
Commander, a swash-buckling Texan, halted the convoy in a State Park in
Texarkana and requested all of the civilians to leave the park temporarily in
order that his unit could skinny-dip in the refreshing waters.
In September of 1943 the outfit moved
out to Camp Kilmer, NJ, a staging area near New York and a Port of
Embarkation. The Company subsequently
sailed for Scotland on the cruise ship Aquitania, which was the sister ship to
the ill-fated Lusitania. At the Firth
of Clyde a large ferry, the Ben Macres, took the unit across the rough Irish
Sea to Belfast in Northern Ireland, and from there they took a train to Upper
Ballinderry.
From there, at the end of February
1944, it was over to Scotland, thence to London and west to Cornwall to set up
a field depot to equip the American Armed Forces for the invasion of
Normandy. The 346 was picked for the
extra duties of supplying waterproofing kits for the vehicles that were to land
on the beaches. That fulfilled, the
orders then came to correct a ‘snafu’ at a British ordnance facility in
Cheltenham. For some reason the boxes
were mislabeled. Each piece of material
had to be inspected, identified and labeled correctly.
It was later than one thinks when the
fair-haired boys sailed across the Channel and disembarked on Utah Beach in
Normandy. For 9 days, in rain and soupy
mud, the unit stored and shipped forward ammunition and fuel.
At the end of that time, it was time
to move toward the forward lines, and it took 3 days to go through Paris and
wind up in Valkenburg, Netherlands. The
depot was set up even with a confiscated donkey railroad, and supplied forward
units in and near Aachen, Germany about 15 miles away. This was the Bulge period and the MaImedy
Massacre was barely 30 miles away, so close that the unit was alerted to
special orders to reconnoiter should there be a breakthrough. It was a very cold winter, and it snowed
about every other day. On a bitter cold
morning in complete darkness the 346 moved to an old factory on the northeast
side of Aachen. All hell broke loose on
the night of George Washington’s birthday.
Our troops had lain a devastating barrage across the Roer River where
the Germans had holed up since the previous November. From there the 346 kept pace with the advancing troops through
Munchen Gladbach. Then across the Plain
of Cologne where a destructive tank battle had taken place, then to the Rhine
and across it to the Ruhr Valley. At
Dorsten artillery shells of Allies and Germans were whining overhead. The 346 had been the first ordnance depot
company to enter Germany and to cross the Rhine. After Dorsten it was Ahlen, Hamelis, Braunschweig and finally
Helmstedt, near the famous Check-point Charlie when the war ended.
Its never over till its over, and the
346 wound up in Bremerhaven for another 5 months. At that time the 40 and 8s arrived, and the outfit trained west
to France and the embarkation camps, Camp Philadelphia and Camp Twenty Grand.
The 346 shipped out of LeHavre on
December 11, 1945, went through the stormiest weather of the war on the Victory
Ship John Clarke for 18 days and finally arrived off New York Harbor to be
greeted by a welcoming ship where the 346 was serenaded by the famous Andrews
Sisters on December 29, 1945.
Fifty years is a long time, but it
seems like yesterday when it all began.
When eyes meet, there is a bond that every veteran feels, a bond that
defies time, space, and status. All
former rank is accepted and respected.
This encompassing spirit extends even to the spouses. They are the fair-haired boys, they are
young again, they are the 346.[i]
Bobby Lee McAninch
9th ARMY
346 Ordnance Depot Co.
1942 - 1946
346 ORDNANCE DEPOT COMPANY
World War II Itinerary – E. T.
O.
Left
New York City about 2 of October 1943 on H. M. S. Aquitania.
Upper
Ballinderry, North Ireland 10 Oct
1943 --- 28 Feb 1944
Truro
and St. Germain, Cornwall, England 1
Mar 1944 --- 15 June 1944
Camp
Northway G-25 Depot, Ashchurch, England
15 June 1944 --- 19 Oct 1944
St.
Germain DeVarreville, Normandy, France
23 Oct 1944 --- 30 Oct 1944
Valkenburg,
Holland 3 Nov 1944 ---
13 Jan 1945
Aachen,
Germany 14 Jan 1945 ---
7 Mar 1945
Munchen-Gladbach,
Germany 8 Mar 1945 --- 31 Mar 1945
Dorsten,
Germany 1 April 1945 ---
3 April 1945
Ahlen,
Germany 4 April 1945 --- 11
April 1945
Hameln,
Germany 12 April 1945 ---
17 April 1945
Helmstedt,
Germany 18 April 1945 ---
8 June 1945
Bremerhaven,
Germany 9 June 1945 ---
24 Sept 1945
Nordenham,
Germany 24 Sept 1945 ---
1 Nov 1945
Camp
Phila, Mourmelon, France ca 12 Nov
1945 --- 3 Dec 1945
Camp
Twenty Grand, Rouen, France 3 Dec
1945 --- 11 Dec 1945
Left
LeHavre, France on V. S. John Clark 11
Dec 1945
Arrived
New York City 28
Dec 1945
Discharged
from Ft. Sam Houston, Texas 4 Jan
1946